FutureEd Director Thomas Toch presented written testimony to the Council of the District of Columbia on May 7, 2026, addressing the Council’s proposal to eliminate funding for Advanced Technical Centers in District of Columbia high schools.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify. My name is Thomas Toch. I am the director of FutureEd, a non-partisan education think tank at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy. FutureEd has written about rethinking high school through career and technical education (CTE) and microcredentials, with a focus on expanding opportunities for traditionally underserved students.
With that mission in mind, I strongly urge the Council to protect funding for the Advanced Technical Centers (ATCs). The ATCs support students across the city, 60 percent of whom are identified as at-risk—meaning they are homeless, in foster care, qualify for public assistance, or are overage—and put them on a path to a college degree and/or a good job.
CTE programs like the ATCs improve outcomes for students who have historically been underserved by traditional academic pathways. FutureEd has extensively researched a growing component of CTE called microcredentials, which are industry-aligned certifications that allow students to demonstrate mastery of in-demand skills. Our report found that early microcredential programs increased student engagement and academic achievement, particularly among at-risk students.
The ATCs put these CTE and microcredential approaches into practice, and the results mirror FutureEd’s findings—ATC participants graduate high school at a rate seven percentage points higher than their peers. By making coursework more applied and career-connected, the ATCs help keep students engaged and persist through graduation. At a time when student disengagement and chronic absenteeism remain high, especially among high schoolers, that impact is especially significant.
The ATCs also support students beyond high school. In the first three years of the program’s implementation, 400 students collectively earned more than 4,700 college credits, giving them a substantial head start on postsecondary attainment and reducing both the time and cost required to earn a degree. This is especially significant given that only 20 percent of DC students ultimately graduate from college.
ATC participants also earned more than 250 industry-recognized credentials, creating direct pathways into good-paying, in-demand careers. As the DC region faces the loss of more than 100,000 jobs and young DC natives experience an unemployment rate seven times higher than that of non-natives, the Council has a responsibility to strengthen pathways from high school to employment and support the region’s economic recovery.
The ATCs have already delivered meaningful results for both students and the broader DC community. The Council should not only sustain the program, but also expand it to ensure that more students, especially those most at risk, have access to college credit, industry credentials, and pathways to economic mobility.
Thank you very much.